This invention pertains to instruments for clearing mulch from soil in front of tools of farm implements used for minimum tillage. More particularly the present assembly has a single wheel with teeth for engaging mulch. The axis of the wheel is centered over a path of soil being prepared by a respective tool.
Conservation of moisture in soil and more economical farming may be realized by leaving most of the mulch from the stalks or vines of previous crops in place on the soil of fields while the crops of the current year are being planted and tended. Farm equipments, manufactured or modified to prepare soil by minimum tillage, have clearing assemblies to clear residue of former crops from only those small areas or strips that are necessary to have direct access to soil by furrow openers, sprayers and spreaders.
Clearing wheels that are freely rotative and that have teeth for engaging debris have been used in various prior farm implements. A horizontal axis of each of the clearing wheels of the prior implements is at an acute angle horizontally from the direction of travel, and since the clearing wheels are freely rotative on a hub and the teeth engage debris and soil, forward motion of the farm implements rotate the clearing wheels to clear paths by moving debris from the paths of the respective wheels. Satisfactory rotation of the wheels with sufficient force to remove debris transversely is provided by having the horizontal direction of the axes at about 45 degrees from the direction of travel of the implements.
Most of the prior farm implements having clearing wheels to clear debris have been used for removing particular residues from strips of fields in which soil is quite deeply cultivated. A modification of each unit of a multiple row crop planter for minimum tillage farming is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,890 issued to Howard D. Martin on Nov. 22, 1988. An assembly of a pair of horizontally and oppositely spaced toothed wheels is positioned ahead of a furrow opener of each unit. The toothed or clearing wheels of the assembly penetrate residue and soil at two respective positions spaced in opposite directions from the centerline of a path being cleared by the pair, and each of the wheels move the debris to the respective adjacent edge of the path. Minimum disturbance of soil results from having the wheels penetrate debris and soil only to the extent required to rotate them, and therefore an assembly of two clearing wheels clears a path most thoroughly of debris in lines where the teeth of the wheels penetrate soil, that is, not along the usual centerline traveled by a following tool but along lines spaced from the centerline of the path being cleared.